


Bullet In My Hand

by SouthernMoonshine



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Gore, Gen, Hospital scene, Organized Crime, Rook's foul mouth, Russian Mafia, Violence, illegal drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 08:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2342369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernMoonshine/pseuds/SouthernMoonshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between beating up gang members and frightening his little brother, Rook has an exciting day in the gritty city. Too bad he just got shot, but that's really nothing new....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bullet In My Hand

**Author's Note:**

> _I got a fast life and a slow-cuttin' knife_  
>  _I been drinking from a poisoned well_  
>  _No home and a bag of bones_  
>  _I got nothing else left to sell_  
>  _I know why I'm in this hell_  
>  _I just don't wanna believe_  
>  _But cross that line that's waitin' for me right now_  
>  _There's someone looking out for me!_  
>  \--["Bullet in My Hand," by Redlight King](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1KL5U-fyMc)

Coughing, Rook staggered under the blow to his chest, and lashed out blind with the knife in his hand. Someone shouted as he felt the resistance of a cut. Rook got his hair out of his eyes, and lunged back in with a high punch to another bastard's face with his free hand. Someone jumped on his back, snatched at his hair, and he struggled to keep his balance under the weight. Oh _shit_ the dude with the baseball bat was back up, and Rook stabbed backwards, narrowly missing his own thigh in the process. He caught a fist to the face and wrenched free of the fucker on his back.

"Hilary!"

He'd last seen his little brother go down under two more of these jumped-up gang-wannabes....

Gunshots. Three of the men trying to dogpile Rook turned and ran immediately. Laughing, Rook jumped on one of the remaining ones and knifed him good, rammed his blade all up in the bastard's shoulder. Fuck with Rook and you got fucked.

Another gunshot and the man beside Rook howled as he took a bullet to the gut.

Rook whooped it up. "Yeah, run, you sorry bastards! Think you're so fucking hot! Yeah! Get the fuck outta here! You call yourself gang members!"

That burn of victory lasted all of five more seconds until reinforcements arrived, scrambling around the corner and returning fire. The stupid little shits held their guns cocked out sideways, all gangster-cool, which was why they weren't hitting shit. It was Thom who was hitting something with every shot, standing cool and square with a stance any police officer could envy, his 1911 barking off measured shots: he looked damn terrified, like he always did, eyes wide in his pale face.

Yeah but guns meant it was time to wrap that shit up, no matter how good Thom could shoot. Rook bolted down the street, slapping his pockets for the keys, nearly cutting himself with his own knife. He sheathed that, grabbed the key, and stumbled hard before he swung himself on his bike. He rammed the keys home, snapped his foot down over the starter, and the bike roared to life. Sweeping up the kickstand he revved the engine, ready, and he only waited for Thom's arm to snake around his waist before he popped the clutch and they were off. Thom twisted behind him, took a few parting shots, and Rook fought to keep the bike balanced under them.

He swept them out into the main thoroughfare with a whoop, and Thom let out a shrill warcry as well, almost lost amidst the honking and squealing of tires as Rook started weaving through traffic. Thom's face tucked against the back of his shoulder, their hair whipped in the wind.

Rook gunned it, pushed for speed, kept them running flat out for a few miles for safety. Thom clung to him, scrunching smaller against the bite of the wind, and Rook wanted to tell him to stop holding so hard, it was making him breathless.

Only that wasn't why, he discovered, when his vision went swimmy and he nearly laid the bike down with them both on it. Thom's scream this time was terrified and Rook pulled them up after he recovered, bumped to a halt on the sidewalk and braced them and the bike with shaking legs.

"What the _fuck_ John you - oh shit. Oh shit." Thom was holding his arm out, and in the streetlights Rook could see it too: the slick of blood down Thom's arm where he'd been clutching at Rook.

"Oh shit," repeated Rook, and dragged in a deeper breath. He reached up and felt under his coat: wetness and warmth and the pulpy feel of soaked fabric. He dropped the kickstand and got off the bike. He couldn't find a hole but he'd probably been shot. When? Who knew? He couldn't think, jumped up on adrenaline and a few extra chemicals.

"You got a cell?" Thom asked.

"No, pawned it yesterday." Rook shook his head. He looked around. They were in a residential area. He gestured to a house. Thom nodded, and marched up the sidewalk to knock on the door. 

"I need to borrow your phone, please. It's an emergency." A wild-eyed young man in a stained coat with blood down his arm. He was almost turned away, until he stuck his foot in the door and calmly drew his gun from under his coat. "I need to borrow your phone, please. It's an emergency," he repeated, just as polite as before.

Rook stood by the bike and tried to hold pressure, hard when he didn't know exactly _where_ he was bleeding from. But if he got the general area, he figured it would only help. Thom, his gun hidden again, walked back down the sidewalk to him.

"Got Ghislain. He's on patrol tonight, they got a call. He says he's sending a friend."

Rook snorted and wished he hadn't. His chest was starting to hurt now. "I hope it's a damn good friend of his, Hilary."

"Me too. Where's all that coming from, John?" Thom started to peel away Rook's coat: it was dripping on the sidewalk now, heavy slow drops.

"Fuck if I know. It all hurts all over." Rook helped him lift the coat away, find the slow weeping of blood high on Rook's left chest. 

Thom pressed his hand over it. "Why are you always getting shot?" he complained, unhappily, and he almost sounded young as he looked, except right now he didn't look young, just breathless in the dark with pupils too wide.

"Bad luck, I guess," Rook told him, and added his hand over Thom's, wincing. "Gotta sit down. Wanna smoke?" 

"Fuck no, John, you're shot in the chest and you wanna smoke. What the hell is wrong with you?" Thom demanded.

So when the little blue hatchback pulled up on the street, going slowly, it found Rook sitting on the ground beside the bike, smoking, and Thom leaning on the seat, holding his hand out for his turn with the cigarette. Rook's hands were starting to shake real bad - his chest hurt now, ached and burned with every breath. Shit was legit this time. At least he'd only felt swimmy again once more, and the bleeding had almost stopped.

The hatchback was driven by a pale young man with dark hair, cut short. There was a younger one in the passenger's seat. They looked out of place in the dingy street, prim and proper and wide-eyed nervous. Rook wanted to laugh and see if they'd jump, but he was a little too breathless.

"Ah, are you, um, Thom and Rook?" the young man asked. Rook abruptly decided he was older than Rook himself was, and he had the old country accent, pure and nasally. 

"That's us. Ghislain sent you?" Thom demanded, and took a deep drag of the cigarette, unimpressed. His accent was like Rook's, rough and crumbled at the edges. 

"Ah, yes. My name is Amery. He said one of you was hurt? Oh my God!"

Rook had stood up, wobbling, and there was no mistaking it was blood soaking his shirt, flaking darkly as it dried. "Yeah. Hi. Got fucking shot, need a ride to the general," he managed, voice thin. Ouch moving hurt like a bitch. His hands tingled: Thom caught his shoulder and Rook swayed into the support. Oh shit. 

Amery popped his little car in park and hopped out. The younger man in with him tried to get out, and Amery stopped him with a " _Non, Balfour_!" and opened the door to the backseat. Rook's hands went numb entirely and he gasped out a curse before he slumped, clutching gracelessly at Thom to stop his fall as the world went black.

He came back around to Amery swearing quietly in French and his head in someone's lap, hands over the wound to hold pressure. "Shit...m'bike."

"I'm driving it," Thom said, from around Rook's feet, and Rook opened his eyes to sort out the sudden sense of disorientation. He discovered Balfour was the one holding pressure, his eyes even bigger than Thom's in the dark, and Thom patted him on the shin before stepping away and shutting the door. Rook felt it strike the sole of his boot, and heard the little hatchback purr to life. It was so quiet, unlike the bike, and Rook heard Thom fall in behind them as Amery pulled off.

Rook huffed a laugh, hoarse and painful. "Hi. Name's Rook," he told Balfour, who surprisingly didn't flinch. 

"Balfour. I would say a pleasure to meet you, but I'll save that for when you're not possibly bleeding out," Balfour returned, with a young thin frightened voice. He was pretty steady, though, and Rook had to admire that, even as he was struggling to breathe. "Amery, he's lost a lot of blood. I think you could break the speed limit," he told the man, in French.

"Yes that would be nice," Rook added, in Russian, to show he could, and Balfour blinked at him. "Not so good in the old tongue," he added, in his very very bad French.

"I've heard worse," Balfour assured him, smoothly, and added, in absolutely atrocious Russian, "My Russian very bad."

Rook laughed, gasped, and clenched his hands on the seat because that really fucking _hurt_. Oh God, oh God, that hurt, and now he had to cough, and that hurt even _worse_ , the burning in his chest white-hot and searing into his ribs, down the center of his chest, reaching up his throat. It wasn't just his hands shaking anymore, either, it was all of him now, and it hurt to breathe. His lips were wet, but so were his temples. Rook didn't cry. He was tougher than that. But he couldn't seem to stop the tears leaking from his eyes, the hitching choking sobs that hurt so much. God he hurt.

"Amery, he just coughed up blood. Please hurry." He dimly heard Balfour's words.

Eyes shut, Rook tried to breathe, tried so hard to stop sobbing. It made it worse, it really did. Fuck.

He didn't realize they had stopped, they were there, until the doors opened and Balfour started babbling, and a familiar voice cut through. "Oh, look, it's my favorite walking GSW. Except you're not walking. Oh shit, Rook, are you _crying_?"

Rook fought his eyes open, and tried to smile at Luvander. "Hi, favorite nurse." His breath caught and he choked down the noise he wanted to make, and Luvander was swearing violently. Hands seized him and Rook did cry out, it made his chest hurt so much as they moved him, and he coughed up more blood, clinging to whatever his hands found. The world was dim and grey, but came hazily into focus again. They were rushing through the ER, and Luvander raised his voice: "I need the trauma team to room three stat!" Rook decided shit was real, then, because normally he just got a little patch job and a lecture, but he couldn't _breathe_ anymore and Luvander was prying his hands off the wheelchair, trying to pull him up which was hilarious because Luvander was the shortest motherfucker Rook had ever met. The security guards bent to help and Rook lost time again as they got him onto the stretcher, not exactly out of it but not able to help, make a sound, except he was still crying and it was embarrassing as all hell that he couldn't _stop_.

Flat on his back, staring at the bright lights, he gasped out, "Better not...cut m'fuckin' coat. F'v'rite."

Luvander bent near him, smile strained, and slipped a mask over his face. The cool dry rush of oxygen tickled, and it helped a little. "What, dear?"

"Don't...cut my coat," Rook managed.

"Oh honey, we can't...oh hell Rook stop!" Luvander's tone went from saccharine soothing to violently scolding in record time as Rook fought up on an elbow. "Hell, fine, his fucking coat..." Other hands helped, pushed and pulled so Rook could get his arms out of his coat, and Rook dropped back to the stretcher, panting for breath, eyes closed, vision gone grey and dim, head swimming. He could feel them moving around him, a flurry of activity and sharp barked orders, voices staccato one after another: he'd seen it before, the focus of a team saving someone's life...he'd been here often enough, sure, but he hadn't ever been the one on the table. He opened his eyes again, and looked up at the doctor. Well, baby-doctor, as Rook called the student physicians.

"Hey...Jeannot."

"That's Dr. Jeannot to you," the dark-skinned man snapped, scowling, and his gloved hands were bloody. "We're going to roll you, look at your back, see if we can find an exit wound. Has anyone called CAT scan yet? Where the hell is Respiratory?"

They rolled him, hands clutching at his body, and Rook felt Jeannot's gloved hand slide down his back searching for a wound, his bloody shirt peeled away from his skin. Another count of three and he was staring up at the lights, instead of somebody's scrub pockets. He felt so heavy, at the same time weirdly floaty. His chest was tight, heavy, aching. He heard Thom's voice, cutting clear through the confusion, and tried to lift his head. Hands held him down, but Thom shoved up beside Luvander.

"Rook, you bastard, hold _still_ ," Thom scolded, but he was frightened and one eye was swelling shut and his pupils were blown wide under the lights, a thin ring of green around the black depths.

"Right, give me twenty of diprivan, stat," Jeannot said, wierdly clear. "I'm about to cut."

A syringe of milky white medication was passed over Rook's face. Oh hell, he knew what that-

Rook opened his eyes. The room was quiet, lights dimmed. Oxygen in a mask hissing over his face. Warm blankets and blood tacky and itchy on his skin. A weight heavy across his legs. Rook lifted his head. Thom lay half across the bed, sleeping, and drooling copiously on the sheets, glasses askew. Rook laid his head back. He felt wholly buzzed, high on something good, euphoric and shaky despite the discomfort gnawing at his left side. He reached up, feeling the sharp nip of IV lines in his hand and arm, the pull of monitoring wires. He fumbled off the oxygen mask - it always made him feel like he was smothering, the way it pinched into the bridge of his once-broken nose.

"I don't think you should take that off," said a quiet, cultured baritone. Rook flinched, and turned his head, dreads rustling across the sheets. It was Amery, sitting in a chair by the wall, a book in his hands.

"You fuckin' stayed?" Rook asked hoarsely, surprised. Ouch, his chest hurt, ached deep and itched at his side, something pulling. "They usually just take off after they dump my ass here."

"Ghislain seemed concerned. I wished to ensure you were going to recover," Amery answered, calmly.

"Oh, you're awake," Luvander chirped, poking his head past the curtain. "And you took the mask off, that's why your sats dropped." He came into the room, silent, a midget of mercy in fucking lavender scrubs and atrocious floral clogs. He deftly detangled the mask from Rook's hair and put it away. "Rook, honey, what did you take this evening? Your heartrate's up and running, and while it usually is when you come in here, you're not usually this tachy."

"What's tacky are your fuckin' shoes," Rook croaked, a joke he'd run past Luvander a dozen times. The nurse still laughed. "Dropped a little speed earlier."

"Ah, that would do it. Well, congratulations, you're alive. You've got a chest-tube in, though, try not to pull that out. You had a very nasty hemothorax, dear, and you gave us quite the fright. But Dr. Jeannot got you fixed before you coded on us, and you don't even have to go into surgery, isn't that nice? We'll probably keep you for a few days, though, just to make sure the bleeding won't start again."

"Get the bullet out?" Rook asked, then added, "Say it again in stupid terms, Luv."

"Yes, we did, you're still only decorated with three, darling. Stupid terms...you were bleeding into your chest so much there wasn't any room for your lungs anymore, and almost no room for your heart to keep beating. We've put a tube in to drain the blood, please do not pull that out. I wouldn't suggest taking out that IV, either, we're giving you a second unit of blood to perk you back up, sweetie."

Rook tipped his head to eye the overhanging bag. Yeah, that was blood alright. Huh. "Drink?" he asked, hopefully.

"I'll get you something, dear." Luvander patted him briskly on the hand, turned, and ghosted away again. Super-quiet nurse shoes. It was a fucking mystery.

"You have three bullets in you?" Amery asked.

Rook had almost forgotten he was there, and turned his head to look at him again. Thom snorted in his sleep and twitched, violently, before going still. "Yeah. One up in my neck and two in my hips. Can't operate to get 'em out, too close to important shit. Don't really bother me none." Except on bad days when it hurt so bad he could hardly move. Yesterday had been one of those, with a storm front rolling in, which was why he'd been doing a little speed, to keep going and not mind the hurt. "Been fuckin' shot lots more 'n that, but those were the ones that stayed."

"I see. You belong to one of the local gangs, then?"

"Nah." Rook grinned, mirthless. "Just keep fuckin' up their shit."

"I see." Amery looked perturbed.

Luvander came back in, carrying a styrofoam cup with a straw. He offered this to Rook, leaning over the bed railing, and Rook drank greedily. Shit was cold but it felt good. When he was through, Luvander set the cup on a tray nearby, and fetched a blanket from the shelf. Unfolding and refolding it deftly, he draped it over Thom's back, and left, all in utter silence.

Those fucking nurse shoes. Rook stretched his hands and wiggled his toes. In deference to Amery being in the room, he didn't call Thom by his real name. "Thom. Thom. Hey, c'mon. Wake up. Thom."

Thom sat up and blinked at him, eyes bloodshot and pupils still too wide and a fine black eye swollen and red on the right. "Mmmwha?"

"Go get me some coffee, Thom, Luv gave me something to drink."

"I don't think you need any further stimulants in you," Amery declared, eyeing the heart monitor dubiously. "Unless that wasn't the only thing you took."

"I like coffee. Thom needs some too. An' I ain't telling you what drugs I do or don't do. If you're Ghislain's friend you're probably a cop, too." Pretty good logic, Rook felt, when he was fucing high as a kite. " 'Sides, can't take nothing that'll touch what they dope you up on here. What'd they fuckin' give me, Thom? High as Goddamn kite."

"MmmIiiiii think it was morphine on top of the propofol an' some promethazine," Thom answered, rubbing at his face, and fumbling for his glasses, which had been so crooked they'd just fallen off when he'd sat up.

"I'm not a police officer," Amery returned, primly.

"Then what is you?" Rook demanded.

"Attorney-at-law," Amery admitted, after a moment. Rook whistled and Thom did too. 

"So what's your brother, baby cop or baby lawyer?"

Thom got to his feet creakily, as if he were really fucking stiff, and went to get coffee. Amery sniffed. "Neither. It doesn't concern you."

"I'm a pre-med student," Balfour reported, as he came into the room again. "Hi. They said you were awake." He blinked as Thom staggered past him. "Uh. Your friend doesn't talk much, I guess."

"Thom? He's my baby bro. He talks plenty. Just freakin' out tonight." And probably hit the downslope of the speed he'd taken earlier - Rook hadn't gotten doped up alone. And it was funny, people never expected Thom to be the one buzzed or high or fucking drunk as a skunk, but Thom had been the one this afternoon to press the pills into Rook's hand. Rook never asked where he got it, because 'hey who's your supplier' was a personal question he wasn't about to get into with his little brother, mostly because he actually wasn't into drugs himself. A little, here or there, to take the edge off life, but it was never a steady thing.

"Well, understandable," Balfour commented, lightly, and moved closer to the bed, crouching down to look at something hung on the side. Rook figured it was probably the set-up for the tube in his chest, which he couldn't exactly feel, except something was itching in his side. That was probably it. He started fiddling with the IV lines.

"I don't think you should pull on those..." Balfour chirped, standing up.

"Okay, mister know-it-all, fuck off, I've been here before." Rook got the lines twitched all straight again. "An' when they's pinching they fuckin' hurt an' I'll fuck with 'em all I like. Now go fuckin' bother Jeannot, he's one of the baby doctors an' he'll tell you to run like hell afore you end up treatin' useless bastards like me for a living'."

Balfour looked vaguely shocked. Rook guess he wasn't used to being cussed out. Amery made a displeased little grunt. "Can you even speak a sentence without being vulgar?"

"Fuckin' no," Rook returned, cheerfully, and flipped him off. Moving hurt. Ow. He went still again, staring up at the lights. "You could, like, fuckin' turn on the TV or something."

"Amery doesn't _believe_ in watching TV," Balfour drawled, and Rook turned his head to catch the young man rolling his eyes.

"Most of what is touted as _world news_ or _quality programming_ is neither," Amery sniffed, "And most news stations are incredibly biased."

"Fuck, they have cable TV here, watch Sixteen and Pregnant or Animal Planet or something," Rook said, mostly to see what face Amery would make. It was a glorious one of absolute disgust. "What, Luvander likes to fuckin' sneak in his rooms an' watch them both on slow night."

"You seem very familiar with the staff here," Balfour commented.

"Shit, I'm here all the damn time," Rook snorted. "Been shot before, stabbed, crashed my fuckin' bike. Hell, sometimes I just come up here to see these damn fine people," he drawled, sarcasm heavy in his voice. The brothers eyed him skeptically. "Naw, that's a damn good way to piss 'em off. Ain't like I try to come here. Just always fuckin' do. Where the hell is Thom with that coffee anyway?"

"He hasn't been gone very long," Balfour demurred.

"Been gone long enough. Nurse break room ain't but down the fuckin' hall. Little shit got distracted I bet. He always fuckin' gets distracted, all the damned time. Thought coffee would be important enough he'd come right back. You! Baby-wannabe-doc. Go fuckin' look for him and bring him back." Rook was amused by the sudden startled look Balfour got, and the scowl Amery suddenly developed. Apparently Amery did not take kindly to other people bossing around his little brother.

Someone slipped past the curtain, and it was not Thom...but he was second in, following the dark-haired man, and trailed by a redhead. "Hey, Rook, we heard our favorite walking wounded was in here," Raphael chuckled, coming to peer at him in the bed, all neat and tidy in his flight jumpsuit. "And you...I don't believe it! Amery Vallet? Bastion, it's been ages, how are you these days, my good man?"

"Ah, Raphael Sauveterre. I'm well, and yourself?" Amery returned, looking up at the flight nurse.

"Fuckin' finally, did you get lost?" Rook demanded of Thom, who sat on the edge of the bed and held out the coffee.

"Ran into these clowns." Thom gestured to Ace, who rolled a shrug. "And called Dmitri, he says our shit's going out on the curb in the morning."

"Guess we better get back before then," Rook told him. "Fuckin' sit me up, you ass."

Ace moved too, to the other side of the bed, as Thom went to raise the head of the bed in slow degrees. Rook swore softly under his breath as it made his side ache something fierce. Amery, Balfour, and Raphael were all carrying on an animated discussion, old schoolmates catching up on lives. Rook sipped his coffee and watched from the corner of his eye as, below the level of the bed, Ace slipped a fat roll of bills into Thom's coat pocket. Like a magician, Thom's hand moved, and a plastic bag with a wax-paper-wrapped bundle was hidden deep in the pocket of Ace's flight suit. Rook said not a word and drank his damn coffee, hot and black and bitter as sin. It was nightshift nurse coffee, guaranteed to wind you up better than any speed. 

"You dropping off or picking up?" Rook asked.

"Dropping off. MVC, rollover, jaws of life extraction. The driver got ejected, pronounced at the scene. And that was just the one car." Ace's grin was humorless, dry, his tone casual as he spoke of death and dying. "Ours probably won't make it, we were coding when we landed. Head a rumor someone was decapitated. Keep an eye on the news, you'll see it. Big crash right outside city limits."

Thom whistled, and took the coffee back from Rook to have a sip. "Nice. We appreciate the good job you do saving lives."

"Yes, because humanity needs so many more stupid people living," Ace drawled, bright blue eyes half-lidded.

"Now, Ace, do be nice," Raphael scolded. "Not _all_ of them are stupid. Just most of them." The radio clipped at his waist squawked, and he and Ace immediately became intent on the static-laden message, delivered in a kind of code Rook could only guess at. They were instantly focused like hounds on the hunt, leashed and ready to run at the mere promise of prey. "Well, we must fly! It was good to see you, Amery, Balfour, Rook, Thom." Raphael nodded to all of them in turn, and then headed out the door. Ace followed close behind.

Rook shuffled slowly over in the bed, and Thom passed the coffee over. Hitching himself up in the bed, he said, "Well, if Dmitri is kicking us out, where do you want to stay for the rest of the week?"

"I hear the Sunshine shelter's full this week, we can try over at Saint Molly's. Think they'll let us back in after I shanked that bastard?" Rook asked, sipping the coffee.

"Hell if I know, I hope so. We are not staying at the Mercy shelter ever again, I refuse to go back." Thom grimaced.

"I hear you on that, brother." Rook grimaced as well. People jumping on his little brother was not something he was going to stand for, free meals and bed or no.

"Are you talking about staying at shelters for the homeless?" Amery asked incredulously, and they both turned to look at him.

"Yeah. Ain't like we got a fuckin' house, rich boy." Rook shrugged, and passed the coffee to Thom again, their fingers tangling in passing. Thom settled against Rook's side, and he could feel the hard edge of Thom's gun against his ribs. "Ghislain lets us crash in his shed sometimes, gonna arrest your cop friend for it?"

"His garden shed?" Balfour looked horrified. "There's roaches in it!"

"Slept with worse," Thom sighed. "It's dry and out of the wind. Better than a park bench by far." He passed the coffee back, and Rook drained the last of it. He let his hands rest in his lap, styrofoam cup light in his calloused fingers. Thom was drooping against him, coming down hard. His breathing was deep and slow and heavy and it made Rook sleepy too.

"You own an old, restored motorcycle with a custom paint job and you're homeless? I find this hard to believe," Amery commented, raising a sharp eyebrow.

"Who says I fuckin' own it?" Rook retorted, and grinned a little at the expression the Vallet brothers both wore. "Nah. Own it, got a license, all that jazz. Got it running all by myself anyway." He yawned enormously and let his head rest on top of Thom's, heavy on his shoulder. Thom was snoring again, gently, and Rook's eyes were burning tiredly. "S'bout all I own anyway. Don't fuckin' got no place to stay half the damn time." He closed his eyes.

Amery and Balfour started a quiet conversation. Rook listened with half an ear, as they discussed the night's events, getting blood out of the car, why hadn't Ghislain been more informative, ect. and ect. Rook drifted off on the sound of their low murmurs.

He woke when Thom elbowed him. Rook winced as he was jolted, and lifted his head. An hour had passed, and the bag of blood above his head was empty. He took a careful deep breath. It didn't hurt as much as he'd feared, and he figured the pain medication was still working. Looking, he saw Amery and Balfour were asleep in their chairs. Thom was sliding out of bed, and silently fishing in the cabinets. He came back with bandaging supplies. Rook sat up gingerly, and started peeling off strips of tape. Thom reached up and hit the button that would silence the monitors. Working swiftly, the two of them pulled out both IVs, unstuck the monitoring wires. Rook laid out the bandaging as Thom examined the chest tube, fiddled with the rubbery tubes, and then reached over to unpeel the heavy tape. Rook wadded up a handful of the sheets and stuck it in his mouth as Thom snipped the anchoring stitches with one of Rook's knives. Then he pulled.

Rook's breath hissed through the sheet and his vision whited out with the pain. For a few moments he couldn't think: but then he could feel Thom's hands pressing, sticking the heavy tape back down firmly. Rook took the cloth out of his mouth and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Thom handed him his pants and his coat, Rook's knives hidden in the coat. They'd cut his shirt to pieces, one of his favorite band shirts, too. Rook shrugged his coat on over his bare shoulders, and together he and Thom slipped out of the dim room and into the hall. Around the corner and they were by the staff elevators. Thom pulled a stolen staff badge from his pocket and scanned it, punching the button. Down they went, and emerged into the ambulance bay. Thom swiped them out the door, tossed the badge on the floor inside, let the door lock behind them, and headed out across the parking lot. Rook followed, breathing deeply even though it still hurt.

"That Amery guy and Balfour were talking about letting us stay with them," he told Thom. "They thought I was asleep. What do you think?"

"I think staying at a lawyer's house while I'm three gangs and ten dealers away from having a monopoly on this city's cocaine supply is a damned stupid idea, John," Thom snorted, as they crossed the quiet lot.

Rook pointed out, "Staying at a policeman's house ain't too different, Hilary."

"I suppose you're right." Thom climbed on Rook's bike: an ancient beauty of a Harley sportster, older than them both together and painted in black and gold. Rook swung on behind him, wincing as the move pulled at his side. "Well, I never got to make the delivery I meant to, but at least I got some profit from tonight. Ace was really jonesing."

"You think?"

"Hell yes, to trade for his fix with his drug-sniffing partner in the room, on the clock."

"Sorry, yeah. Still high, I think."

"Yeah, let's go get our shit from Dmitri's. We can crash at Ivory's for a bit." Thom started the engine, and Rook wrapped his arms around his little brother's waist.

Hopefully they'd finish with all this before the drugs wore off, or it was going to be one miserable ride to Ivory's, halfway across the city. It wasn't like they had a lot to pack to start with. They traveled light, backpacks and a pair of lockboxes that belonged wholly to Thom. Rook pretended he didn't know exactly what was in them, or that he was wedging several grand into the bike's saddlebags. They didn't really talk about it, directly, that the two of them were single-handedly taking on almost the entire city's crime syndicate. It wasn't exactly what they'd first set out to do in life, but racketeering and grifting only made so much money, and at this point neither of them would pass a background check for an honest job. Rook had served time in juvie for involuntary manslaughter (It hadn't been. Involuntary, that was. Pretty premeditated, if Rook was honest, but he generally wasn't.) and Thom had a drug charge and they both had been arrested for at least a dozen different things.

Rook climbed on behind Thom and they were off again, at a fairly sedate pace for once. Thom drove like an old man, obeying the traffic laws. Rook was the one always paying fines on speeding tickets and the like. He held on and tried to stay awake. He was feeling sleepy again, and not even the roar of his bike was keeping him perky. He'd taken to pinching himself along the wrist long before they pulled up in Ivory's drive. The two-story house in the suburbs had no inside lights on, and was only lit by the decorative lawn lamps staked along the front walk and drive. Thom walked the bike between several cars to park, obscured, up in the open garage. Rook climbed off and Thom swept the kickstand down, and with bags in hand they went to hammer at the side door.

It took Ivory almost ten minutes to appear. Pale as bone, his hair a whispy blonde and his eyes a vivid blue, Rook had never figured out if Ivory was a nickname for being albino, or if his parents had just been that cruel. Ivory blinked at them, his eyes bloodshot, and silently shuffled aside. He was wearing a black T-shirt and looked even paler than usual. "Blue bedroom's got Merritt an' Evariste in it. Second floor's empty. Watch out for Niall, he's coming in around five this morning, flight got delayed."

"We'll crash in the balcony room, it's got the upstairs bathroom right by it," Thom told him. "John got shot again, we might need it."

"Well, fuck, Hilary, you might've mentioned that," Ivory groaned, rubbing a hand though his hair.

"He did," Rook pointed out, as they came in.

"Before now, you numbskull. If you fucking die in here I'm not calling the cops, you'll have to make do with a burial in my aunt's pansies." Ivory grimaced and shut the door behind them, hitching up his loose jeans as he did so. "Last thing I need is to get busted by the fuzz."

"The _fuzz_? What, are you gangsta now?" Rook mocked as he headed for the stairs, limping after Thom. "An' didn't you bury the last fucker who kicked it in the pansies?"

"No, he got dumped in the harbor. The _Bratva_ had a point to make. You do not mess with the brotherhood. We fuck you." Ivory's smile was humorless. "As the internet saying goes."

"Well at least it'd be a burial," Thom called down as he bounced up the stairs. Rook followed more slowly.

Ivory stayed at the foot of the stairs. "I'm going back to bed. Don't bother me if you need anything. Leftover pizza and _shchi_ in the fridge." With that, he turned and padded silently away again into the dimly-lit house.

Rook stopped dead at the mention of leftovers. " _Shchi,_ Hilary."

"I'll get you some, you ass, come on upstairs and get washed before you pass out!" Thom called back. Assured by this promise, Rook finished climbing the stairs. Fuck but it made his side ache, and he had to lean against the wall a minute to catch his breath at the top. Thom came trundling back to fetch the lockbox Rook was carrying, already divested of his coat and with his gun tucked in the waistband of his pants. In the front.

"One day you're going to shoot your balls off by accident and I'll laugh," Rook snarked.

"I'll be sure to stand close enough to shoot you in the foot when I do." Thom grinned tiredly and trundled along to the room on the corner.

The narrow room had a balcony overlooking the well-cultivated, high-fenced backyard, which made it ace for quick escapes. It was, as Hilary had pointed out, right beside the upstairs bathroom and had a connecting door. Rook dumped his backpack on the bed, and stripped off his dirty clothes and his boots. He left it all in a heap on the floor and went to take a shower, though he did take his knives with him. He did not unstick the tape at his side: it was waterproof and plasticky and he was going to fuck with that as little as possible. The actual bullet wound had the same tape over it. Rook scrubbed off the blood, rinsed out his dreads, and came back clean and dripping to fetch his hair dryer. Thom was perched cross-legged on the bed, and had a laptop plugged in and lit up, the eerie blue glow of the screen casting his face in sharp relief. Rook dug his hair dryer out of his bag and went to dry his dreads properly. Homeless they might be, but Rook had a clean head. No mildewed dreads or nits for him.

He was exhausted and aching when he came back, and wearily pulled on the sweatpants and T-shirt Thom passed him. He sank onto the bed and reached greedily after the mug Thom had secured between his bare feet. Thom passed it over and Rook hugged it close, breathing in the rich scent.

"To think, if you'd stayed with the Vallet brothers, you might be having _baguettes_ and _soupe au pistou_ instead of good _shichi_." Thom was typing away at the laptop, leaning forward to squint at the screen.

Rook grunted at him, mouth already full of the thick, savory stew. Ivory actually made this shit himself, after his grandmother's recipe, and it was damn good. Swallowing, he licked his lips and commented, "You need new glasses again?" Thom shouldn't be squinting.

"No, got hit in the eye. Blurry. Finish your soup, John, and go to sleep."

Right, the very lovely shiner Thom was sporting. Rook shrugged and leaned forward to see what Thom was doing. Schoolwork maybe? It wasn't his laptop, was probably one of Ivory's or just one that had been floating around unclaimed. Ivory let people stay a lot, and people's belongings tended to liberate themselves and get left behind and re-appropriated. The page Thom was scrolling through, however, was not a homework-type page. 

"The hell are you doing on MySpace? Ain't that shit abandoned?"

Thom made a little grunt. "For the most part. I'm on your old page, because you haven't deleted it, and I'm looking for a photo of your highschool graduate class."

"Hilary, I didn't fuckin' graduate." He'd dropped out after serving time in juvie. It hadn't bothered him much. He'd never been very keen on the whole book-learning thing, and really hadn't been fond of a lot of his fellow classmates.

"I know, but...ah. There." Thom pulled up a picture and pointed with triumph. "I knew that Amery guy looked familiar."

Rook leaned forward again, wincing as it pulled on his side. Lined up in full colour were faces he'd never paid much attention to, some he only vaguely stayed in touch with: Ghislain, Ivory, Luvander, Niall, Evariste, Raphael, Ace....and Amery Vallet. Rook scrunched his nose up and blinked. "Well, fuck me."

"I knew his little brother's face, too...he was in my Intro to Psych classes at the 'Versity." Pleased with himself, Thom clicked away from the window and opened up a word document full of the double-spaced lines of text that meant it was an essay of his. "Strange how small the world is."

"Ain't that strange." Losing interest, Rook leaned back and yawned. He finished his soup, carefully, and crawled under the covers to go to sleep. He left Thom tapping away at the laptop, and drifted off into bizarrely vivid dreams full of sharp colours and the taste of rain.

When he woke, it was pouring rain outside. He could hear it on the roof and popping against the window in sharp staccato snaps. Thunder grumbled long and low. He lay a moment in drowsy stillness, and decided he'd woken up because he was a little too cold. He started to reach for the covers: he'd only taken a deep breath and lifted his head when the pain crackled to life, arced like electricity from the back of his neck, down his side, across his hips. Every muscle seized tight, his neck cramped up in a sharp snatch, and Rook's vision went white with the awful burning _agony_ that wracked his body. Dimly, he was aware of his own gasping attempts at staying quiet, too proud even now to cry out loudly, his hands locked rigid in the sheets. Everything _hurt_ oh God did he _hurt_. The old familiar fire of damaged nerves and the grinding undertone of healed bones, and the twisting whine of muscles abused: Rook knew it intimately. His own personal hell for bad days since he'd first been shot at age thirteen: ten years later, it wasn't any better or easier.

The bed shifted, and Thom's voice murmured. He moved and settled against Rook under the covers, draping his body along Rook's back. For a moment the pressure made it even worse, and Rook found himself face-down in the covers, breathing in choked dry sobs. Thom's broad hand smoothed over his shoulder, cupped against the back of his neck. His hand was warm and his fingers pressed in sharply right above the lump lodged against Rook's spine, near the base of his skull. The cramping muscle sparked with pain and then released, and Rook could almost breathe again. Thom's fingers rubbed softly over the embedded bullet, and his breath filtered through Rook's hair. The weight of him hurt but the warmth of him helped and Rook tried to breathe with torn muscles that protested sharply in his chest.

Minutes crept by, unmeasured save in deep breaths and the slow slow ebb of agony. Eventually Thom's hand on his bare neck became damp with sweat, but no longer did Rook feel like clawing his skin off to escape the pain. He became aware, face in the sheets, that Thom was humming something. The tune wandered through Rook's brain, then abruptly fell into memory.

"Fallout Boy, Hilary? For fuck's sake."

"Don't knock it. I like it." Hilary stretched the leg flung over Rook's, sprawled against his brother like a second skin. "Better?"

"Yeah. You okay?"

"Yeah. Feel like I got my ass kicked last night, but funny story: I did. By three guys who were twice my size. How about you?"

Thom was way too damn cheerful. Rook forgot how much of a damned morning person he was sometimes. "I think it was five. An' possibly got hit by a fuckin' truck."

"I saw no truck." Thom's fingers smoothed down the back of Rook's neck again, careful over the bullet. He dug his knuckles in hard as he worked his way down Rook's spine, which simultaneously hurt like hell and felt incredibly good. Rook groaned and tried not to tense up, wary of setting off another round of muscle cramps. Somewhere around the base of his spine Rook groaned again, flinching, as Thom prodded loose the awful knot there. It took a little bit. "There. Think you can walk today?"

"Might could. Keep doing that," Rook begged, shameless, because it was making it hurt less. Thom only chuckled, and kept working.

The door opened and Rook listened: Ivory grunted at them. "You doing that weird thing you two do again?"

"If you mean I'm being a human hot water bottle to my battle-scarred brother, yeah. You want something or are you just here to be an ass?" But Rook could hear Thom's grin, lazy and steady. He turned his head in slow degrees, and saw Ivory leaning against the door-frame, tying a tie.

"You're so cute. You up to walking today, John?"

"Maybe."

"Right. You work on that, only Magoughin's going to be here. Hilary, you need a ride to school today?" Ivory straightened his tie, and shot his cuffs, apparently making sure his cuff-links were adequately secured. Pleased with the result, he deliberately crossed his arms and stared down his narrow nose at them. Rook was less than impressed, half because it was Ivory and half because the man's socks didn't match.

"No, already told my professors I'd be out today, which is just lucky. I have to finish up my paper for Abnormal Psych and I really need to cram for that damned exam in French Lit Two or I'll never pass, and I am not retaking that ridiculous class." Thom sighed heavily, breath ghosting over the shell of Rook's ear and chasing chills down his spine. "But thanks for the offer, Ivory, I do appreciate it."

"Welcome. Be here tonight, you think? I'm counting heads to know how much food I need delivered."

"Probably," Thom decided, over Rook's head. Any other time, Rook would have protested, but he was feeling extremely immobile right now and rather pathetic.

"Right. Good luck walking." With this cheery well-wishing, Ivory left, and shut the door behind him.

"You didn't have to ask off school to help me meet my parole officer," Rook scolded, mostly to the sheets. Thom would still hear, though, and he did. He nodded a little, hand smoothing over Rook's back before he rolled away.

"I know."

That was all, and Rook started to sit up slowly. Moving at all hurt like a motherfucking bitch, but especially his left side and especially his legs, which ached and burned from the small of his back all the way down to his toes in awful skittering jumps of red-hot pain. But he got sitting up with his legs hanging over the edge of the bed, and that was a big step. Getting up standing was another, but Rook took a moment to breathe. He needed it, and only Thom was here to see. Thom, who'd bounced to the floor and was exchanging sweatpants for jeans, singing along to Fallout Boy in a deep deep rough baritone as he hopped first one leg, then the other into his pants.

" _Sometimes before it gets better, the darkness gets bigger.... The person that you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger..._ "

Rook rolled his eyes, fetched Thom's glasses from the sheets, and got to his feet.

It hurt, and it wasn't fast, but that was his life. Rook handed Thom his glasses, as his little brother started looking for them, and smiled, because Thom would always lose his glasses, the little idiot.

Good thing he had Rook here to keep him straight.


End file.
